From StarCraft to Poker: Legendary Gamer “BoxeR” is now a Poker Pro

“The Michael Jordan of StarCraft” has decided to hang up his eSports mouse and keyboard kit and concentrate on a new profession: poker player.

According to the gaming site Kotaku, one of the most successful players of real-time strategy computer game StarCraft to date, Korean Lim Yo-Hwan, widely known in the gaming world as “SlayerS_’BoxeR’” (or simply BoxeR) won’t play professional video game competitions anymore. He is ready to take on a different challenge and concentrate solely on poker.

The Korean announced his decision last week and was recently introduced on a reality show as a professional poker player. He will start his career by playing events at the Asian Poker Tour (APT) and World Series of Poker (WSOP) in 2014.

There are many similarities between StarCraft and Hold’em, Lim Yo-Hwan said. The game is considered “the Cadillac of online gaming” in South Korea and anticipating your opponent’s moves is a must-have skill in order to become a successful StarCraft player.

The Korean is set to have an interesting poker career as he isn’t the first professional gamer to switch to poker. Tournament expert Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier paved the way for BoxeR; he is a former known StarCraft player with multiple accomplishments including first place in the 2003 Euro Cyber Games and a second place finish in the 2001 Word Cyber Games. Since taking on poker, ElkY has $10,430,260 in live winnings, according to CardPlayer.com.

However, compared with the period when the Frenchman started playing poker, the Korean will face a much greater challenge. The games are much tougher than eight years ago so it will be very interesting to watch the eSports icon’s development and rise through the ranks.

Moreover, BoxeR doesn’t seem to be up to the challenge physically when it comes to grinding, like ElkY. “The main problem is the spinal pain. There’s an inflammation, and there is pain in my wrists, waist, neck, and everywhere,” he explained.

Lim Yo-Hwan had his fair share of success, as a professional gamer. He holds an eSports record with 548 wins and 416 losses (56.8%) in his career and was one of the highest-paid professional gamers with annual earnings of $500,000. The Korean was also included in MTV’s “The 10 Most Influential Video Gamers of All Time” list and was voted the greatest gamer of all time by the readers of the gaming site ESReality.